Sonata allegro
by VerizonHorizon
Summary: Sequel to Joyriding. A sonata within a sonata. Spock bares his soul to Jim through music.


_Disclaimer: I don't own or profit from Star Trek. Thanks for reading and reviewing!_

_**Exposition**_

Spock needed to meditate on the theme of Jim Kirk.

He had always been attracted to strong personalities. It's what had attracted him to all of the romantic partners he'd had up to this point. It's what had attracted him to Nyota. It's what currently attracted him to Jim.

The problem was, Spock wasn't good at maintaining relationships.

This problem wasn't cause for immediate concern, given that he and Jim were already _in_ a stable relationship: that of Captain and Commander. Working together required fitting a square peg in a round hole, and they accomplished this feat with surprisingly expert ingenuity. Indeed, their contrasting command styles contributed to rather than detracted from their overall effectiveness as a team. In point of fact, the _Enterprise's _mission success rate was one of the highest in the fleet.

Whether this felicitous dynamic would be lost in translation to a romantic relationship, Spock could not be certain. He was certain, however, that he wanted to pursue such a relationship. Their sunset tryst in the cornfields of Iowa replayed constantly in his mind. He had enjoyed learning a new facet to Jim's personality, as it had provided stunning new insights into the man he knew as his Captain and friend. And he had enjoyed their amorous activities as well.

Now Spock felt the onus was on him to share something of himself with Jim. Something that would reveal an aspect of his personality with which Jim was not already well acquainted.

And therein lay his dilemma. Spock was not an open person by nature. Quite the contrary, the icy demeanor he was frequently accused of having was a more apt metaphor than those who used it actually realized. He was truly like an iceberg, the surface giving little indication of its true depth.

Jim had the ability to make him melt.

But if Jim was the sun, where should Spock direct the rays?

Still working on this question, Spock opened the door to his quarters to allow Nyota to enter.

"I brought a new piece," she said, holding up two PADDs with pre-installed music programs. "You don't mind sight-reading for our practice today, do you?"

"Not at all," he replied easily, pleased to put his lyre playing skills to the test. He took his instrument from the shelf and sat down on the chair next to his desk, placing it in ready position on his lap. Nyota introduced the song while he looked down to rotate the knobs to tune the strings. While many Terran instruments tuned from note A, it was traditional to tune the Vulcan lyre with middle C since the strings covered the full diatonic scale.

"It's a classical Deltan aria," she explained, setting up the PADD with his part of the musical score upright on his desk.

"Deltan?" Spock quirked an eyebrow. "Would I be correct in surmising the piece is a love song?"

Nyota's ponytail flapped back and forth as she nodded. "In the opera, the actor is mourning her lover's death." Spock didn't particularly care about the emotional context. He wanted to see the complex array of notes, the intricate patterns he would manipulate his fingers into. That was the interesting challenge for him. "Don't you want to look ahead?" Nyota asked him when he stopped practicing finger positions and signaled for her to begin. "Give it a once-over before we begin?"

"Negative," Spock disagreed. "I would like to test my ability to play the piece without such a preview."

"Alright," Nyota agreed, smiling encouragingly. The piece began a cappella, so she took a deep breath and sang the first notes. Spock counted the beats and measures, waiting for his entrance. It wasn't that he didn't enjoy listening to Nyota sing, she had an agreeable singing voice, but his interest in their musical collaboration simply differed from hers. She sang because she enjoyed the emotional release; he played because he enjoyed waging battle against the notes on the PADD. Victory was when the sounds emitting from his lyre were correctly ordered and precisely in tune.

He watched the bars pass on the scrolling screen of the PADD until he counted his accompaniment would begin in four beats. Three, two, one, he plucked the first major chord.

Spock played the entire piece without error. Nyota's efforts were nearly flawless as well. It was very satisfying. Nyota took a drink of water and then tilted her head at Spock. "What did you think of the piece?"

He answered enthusiastically, "I thought it presented several difficult sections that expanded my skills." He silently reworked one of the tricky transitions in demonstration.

Nyota smiled but also rolled her eyes. Spock frowned, and she elaborated, "Yes, it was a technically challenging piece. I knew you'd like that. But what about the feeling of the piece? Did you sense the melancholy and loss in the theme? The opening lamentation that gave way to acceptance then ultimately exultation in the finale?"

Spock considered her questions before discarding them. "I did not attend to those aspects."

Nyota placed her elbows on the desk and rested her head on her hands. She looked at him seriously. "Maybe you should. In fact, I think _you_ should compose a piece."

"Compose?" Spock asked dubiously.

"You play the pieces really well, but have you ever considered writing your own music?"

"I have not."

She flicked her ponytail with a deliberately casual air. "Kirk has."

Spock looked up sharply at her pronouncement. Then, he tamped down his reaction (albeit ex post facto). "Indeed?" he inquired, trying to affect a disinterested tone.

"Indeed," she confirmed. "Heard he played in a band when he was a teenager."

"What instrument?" Spock couldn't resist asking.

"Guitar," Nyota answered. "Anyway," she said, steering the subject back to her suggestion, "Sometimes it helps to play for a friend first. Helps soothe the nerves. Composition is a really personal thing. Nothing bares the soul more than sharing art you've created." She gave him a sly look. "I don't know much about stringed instruments, but Kirk might be a good listener."

Spock narrowed his eyes. "Nyota, are you implying something?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about, Commander," she replied loftily, and it sounded distinctly disingenuous to Spock's ears.

"I will consider it," he promised.

And he did consider it.

Now he had two themes to meditate on. His romantic pursuit of Jim and his musical pursuit of composition. The themes were not unrelated.

_**Development**_

He decided to write a sonata. The three clearly defined sections of the well-structured sonata-allegro form lent themselves to his strict, methodological approach. He would introduce two themes in the exposition. In the final section, he would resolve the themes, recapitulating and restating the main theme. But it was the second section that gave him pause. The development section was by design the most creative and unstable part of the piece. One could reuse earlier themes, but they had to be taken in new and interesting directions. It would require improvisation on his part to construct it, a skill Spock never before attempted to master.

He had three hours and twenty-two minutes of free time this evening, so he decided to devote the hours to the task of composing. He picked up his lyre and sat down. His eyes flicked up to where the PADD music usually was, but of course there was nothing there. No pre-arranged notes to follow.

Spock sat there, holding the lyre.

How did one go about composing?

Spock plucked an E major chord. Then an E minor followed by diminished G. There was no pattern, no purpose. Spock had heard artists speak of inspiration motivating their creations. Where to find inspiration?

He let his mind wander in a way he usually disallowed, hoping to literally pluck out something interesting from his thoughts.

His wanderings brought him to Jim.

More precisely, his mind's eye envisioned Jim during their joyriding encounter. The jeans hugging his well-proportioned legs – and buttocks (Spock had checked). The tousled hair and the way it made him look even younger than he actually was. The leather jacket giving him a slightly dangerous edge. The way Spock's hands felt wrapped around his torso while they rode. Jim's body snuggly fitted between Spock's thighs. The soft skin of his neck, his lips. Lips that were so generous in their kisses. Skilled in the art. And playing with Spock's own so pleasingly.

Jim's kisses on his mind, Spock began to stroke the 12-stringed instrument in his hands. The tune was light and teasing, like the press of dry lips hovering on the verge of going further. He changed the key and the notes came more fluidly, charging forth like he'd charged forth his tongue into the hot cavern of Jim's inviting mouth. Licks of fast finger movements echoing licks of his tongue all around Jim, all around the keyboard.

Spock stilled his hands, feeling his breath quickened and his pulse elevated. He swiftly turned on the terminal and set it to record for later transcription. Sinking into his eidetic memory more fully, he resumed thinking about Jim and the stolen moments they had shared. His fingers flew gracefully over the neck of the lyre, the music pouring out of him. Some logical part of his mind struggled to hold the changing keys in some semblance of sonata order, but his composition resisted like a wild sehlat. Spock wrestled with the notes, trying to let them lead his creative journey yet also rein them in to the desired melodic form.

But at last, just as he had surrendered to his desire for Jim, he surrendered to the music. _Kaiidth_. What is, is. Fully committed, Spock thought of Jim and played. Played for long minutes without rest. No emotion showed on his face, but it could be heard. Heard in the musical lyricism he was crafting out the sparkling well of his ever-growing, evergreen and grounding love for Jim. Curious how his passion soared yet his feet were planted more firmly than ever, rooted in his certainty that Jim and he were right together. He stopped playing chords and plucked singular notes one after the other in a clear declaration of the theme. His theme of Jim. Jim and his smiling eyes that made Spock's brown ones flare up in recognition of their own soul mirrored in another. Jim and his cocksure command persona that made Spock's eyes roll even as he secretly found it endearing. Jim and his unexpected shyness during their rendezvous, which had sparked in Spock equal measures of protectiveness and assertiveness. He balanced the two emotions, and Jim's multi-faceted personality made it scarcely a hardship.

Spock let his desire for Jim wash over and out of him into the music. He thought of their future – both long term and immediate. The former side-by-side, exploring the outer, unknown reaches of space. The latter side-by-side as well, but more intimately, naked bodies writhing and touching and seeking the other's essence. Spock played out these visions on the lyre, hoping they would be played out in real life. The culmination of the piece crept up on Spock without his realizing, and he released three final chords. One more optimistic than the next, all less concluding than promising. And after that last auspicious chord, Spock's hand remained lifted in the air, frozen in the climactic moment.

He blinked in time to the red, blinking recording signal on the terminal. Spock reached out and stopped it, then looked down at his lyre like it was a foreign object. Indeed, his own hands seemed hardly his own steady, reliable appendages. But instead of feeling betrayed by them and what they'd created, Spock looked at them anew with glowing satisfaction at the surpassed expectations with which they had performed. Pleased with how things had turned out, Spock used the remaining portion of his free hours to transcribe and edit the not-sonata.

_**Recapitulation**_

Sitting in his quarters sipping tea with Jim, whom he had nervously invited over with the intention of playing his composition, Spock thought about scales. He thought about emotional scales, and how ever since he met Jim he'd been moved to scale their mountainous heights. He thought about musical scales, and how the lyre he would soon be playing had the diatonic scale threaded through the scroll. And he thought about balancing scales, and how he and Jim would balance their professional and personal relationship in a way that benefited both and detracted from neither, just like their command styles.

Intuitive about his First Officer as ever, Kirk put down his teacup and said, "You look like you have something you want to tell me." It was an invitation.

"_Show_ you, actually," Spock specified. He had not expected to be nervous, but as usual Nyota's predictions were on the mark.

Kirk's eyes lit up mischievously. "Is that so, Commander?"

"Patience, Captain," Spock admonished, all too aware of where his Captain's thoughts were going, then amended, "Jim," to import the need to keep the atmosphere informal and compassionate between them. He stood up and fetched the lyre. He found he did not need the PADD-scroll with the transcribed music since he knew the piece by heart. It was a piece of his heart, in fact. He could only hope both would be well-received. "If it is acceptable, I wish to play a piece that I composed for you."

A tender and excited look swept over Jim's animated face. "You wrote a song for me?" he asked incredulously in a whispered hush.

"I did," Spock confirmed, bending his head to focus on tuning the lyre.

"Spock," Jim said softly, and Spock looked up immediately. "I don't even know what to say. I'm just…overwhelmed and amazed." Jim was practically out of his chair, leaning towards Spock with his blue eyes brimming with sincerity.

Spock raised his eyebrows. "I suggest you refrain from such praise until you have heard it."

This made Jim laugh, a delightful sound to Spock's ears. It was hard to concentrate on the tuning knobs, knowing Jim was looking at him so intently, but at last Spock deemed himself ready to play. He lay his hands on the soundbox as if he were McCoy taking a pulse measurement. He breathed deeply and, eye on the fingerboard, he began to play.

The piece was not really a sonata. It was more of an interpretation of one. As when he first composed it, he started off with a breezy, playful rhythm in the higher reaches of the keys, like how they'd breezed along the cornfields of Iowa on the motorbike. The notes plinked along buoyantly, the pace allegro like the motorcycle's speed, rushing as if to outrun the setting of the sun. The bright, upbeat melody sang throughout Spock's quarters, and then it transitioned into a more andante section, pensive yet still sanguine. Here, Spock played the way Jim was meaningful to him, his vital significance in Spock's life. Finally, Spock's talented fingers brought the piece to a close in the same pinnacle-reaching way he had practiced. Only after the last lingering note faded away did Spock raise his eyes to Jim.

Jim's reaction, like Spock's own composition, outshone Spock's expectations. His Captain's twinkling eyes carried a hint of moisture and his smile was dazzling, nearly blinding in its intensity. And all of it was focused exclusively on Spock. Spock's breath caught in this throat at the bewitching visage, and he never regained it because Jim leapt out his chair and took Spock's lips in a soul-searing kiss.

Spock responded instantly, melting under the onslaught as Jim put so much emotion into the kiss Spock thought he might burst from taking it all into himself. Jim's hands were cupping his face and he was standing over Spock, narrowly avoiding crushing the instrument in Spock's lap. Jim pulled away from the kiss but kept his hands on Spock's face. "Spock. That was…you are so eloquent. I knew but I didn't _know_. You are a constant wonder to me, always showing me something new that just makes me want to hold you by my side forever."

"Your enthusiastic appreciation is most gratifying," Spock responded warmly. "And I approve of your proposition."

Jim picked up Spock's lyre and gave it a kiss, too. "Let's put this somewhere safe," he said, spying the empty space on the shelf and placing it there. Then he took Spock's hand and led him out of the chair and across the room to Spock's bed. "I feel like I should say something more right now. But dammit all I can think about is kissing you." He punctuated the line with a kiss on Spock's parted lips. "Touching you." Jim wrapped his hands around Spock's waist. "Loving you." Spock was pulled gently onto the bed and on top of Jim, who was looking up at him passionately but also with some self-directed frustration.

Wanting to soothe his usually overly-garrulous friend, Spock replied, "I too find such emotional words difficult to articulate. That is why I composed for you on the lyre." Spock added teasingly, "And you talk enough the rest of the time that I am not in any way displeased that your feelings have swallowed your words now."

Jim groaned in embarrassment and covered his face with his hands. Spock used his own hands to remove them and pushed them up over Jim's head. Trapping them there, he leaned down and kissed Jim again, this time with the intention to arouse. Spock had thoroughly enjoyed their assignation on the motorcycle, but he wanted more. He needed more.

With utmost care, he let his weight down in a controlled fall to settle on Jim's outstretched form, nudging at Jim in order to plant his lower half between Jim's legs. Their bodies coming into contact was deliciously tantalizing, and Spock moaned quietly into the kiss when he was unable to stop himself from rocking against Jim's embraceable body.

Jim gasped his way out of the kiss and stole his hands out of Spock's loose grip, only to slide them up and under Spock's blue and black shirts, stroking the Vulcan's bare spine. It was Spock's turn to gasp, and he arched under Jim's hands. "We should," Jim started. "We should." Spock felt him trying to pull his shirts off, but efforts were themselves most distracting. Not wanting to stop for a moment, even to remove barriers of clothing between them, Spock ground down, rolling his hips to divert Jim's attention. It worked admirably. Jim's scrabbling hands resumed their up and down petting before dipping down below Spock's waist to tug him closer still. Spock had been thinking about laying claim to Jim all week, and there would be plenty of time later for more thorough explorations of each other's bodies. Right now all he wanted was to bring them together in the most simple, physical way.

In a rhythm not unlike his composition, Spock thrust against Jim's body, being as eagerly received as was his song. Spock's normally overworked mind went blessedly blank under the stimulation, and it was all frantic bodies, twining legs, slipping hands, searching mouths, and hungry lips. Still desperately joined at those lips, Spock felt Jim climax beneath him and Spock followed headlong into his own sudden orgasm that pitched him into euphoric strata of unimaginable pleasure.

He rolled to his side and held the beloved body close, sharing the same air, the same spirit. Human fingers found their way to one of Spock's pointed ears. At the Academy, he had not taken kindly to overt attention to his ears, especially when said attention was focused on likening him to some sort of mythical elf. But Jim's fascination with them was tolerable. No, he amended as the tip was engulfed in wet heat, Jim's interest was whole-heartedly approved.

Laying there under Jim's loving ministrations, Spock mused on two themes: Jim and music. He had resolved them both at once, resolved in the playing. Fulfilled in the encore.


End file.
